


Tis the season to be Joly

by Ibbyliv



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: And they're all terrible, Baker rivals, Christmas, Drinking, Eventual Relationships, Ferris Wheels, Fluff, Multi, Pick-Up Lines, Polyamory, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:51:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2748380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ibbyliv/pseuds/Ibbyliv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Listen,” the voice says from the other end of the line, “I don’t think I know you, but you were in the party last night. I found your number in my pocket and, by the looks of it, I now have your name tattooed on my ass."<br/>*<br/>“Oh, chère antagoniste!” he smiles cheerfully, “what can I do for you? Are you out of misleading pretentious names for your mainstream pastries?”<br/>She slams a towel on his counter, causing a cloud of coconut dust to rise and cover his ugly sweater. “This has crossed the line, fucktruck,” she growls, and baldie cringes back, intimidated. “Who gave you the right to steal the recipe for my Snowy Crunchy Almond Superegos?”<br/>*<br/>“That…” he gulps, looking from Joly to Musichetta and back. “That your… <em>girlfriend</em>?”<br/>“Do you know each other?” Joly asks in confusion.<br/>“She’s my baker rival!” Bossuet murmurs carefully.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Bossuet meets Joly meets Musichetta. Featuring a Ferris wheel, a chandelier, a cookie recipe and, of course, The Cat.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tis the season to be Joly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Screamingpoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Screamingpoet/gifts).



> This fic is a gift for my democratically elected princess, [Screamingpoet](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Screamingpoet/pseuds/Screamingpoet), who has her birthday today and is the most precious ray of sunshine in the world! You should definitely go and wish my bae Happy Birthday [on tumblr](http://aceparnasse.tumblr.com/) because she deserves all the love in the world!  
> I wrote it because I know she loves j/b/m, but I'm certainly not the best person to come up with imaginative ideas for them, and rl has consumed all my energy to think, so I went on tumblr to search for some tropes. Long story short, I've used all those in a combination:  
> "The ferris wheel broke when my cart was at the top and now i’m trapped here with a stranger"  
> "I don’t know you but you were at that party last night and long story short I now have your name tatooed on my ass" au  
> "I moved into the appartment next door and it’s 100% haunted please let me crash here for the night" au  
> "mutual drunk friend called BOTH of us to pick them up from a party well this is awkward" AU  
> "That is a hideous shirt you should totally just take it off" au
> 
> I hope my attempt at our beloved menage-a-trois wasn't completely pathetic. Also I headcanon Musichetta as Senegalese, Bossuet as Algerian and Joly as half Chinese-half Italian. If anything I've written is offensive in any way, it is out of ignorance and please let me know, I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable!

Coming from a religious family, Joly had always believed in fate, in Santa Claus and fairy lights. Not that the beliefs of the Chinese part of the family coincided perfectly with the other half’s traditional Italian Catholicism, and all that with the talking animals and elves he’d grown up being friends with in his mind, but nevertheless Joly, even after deciding he’d become a devoted scientist, knew how to believe.

Still, if you’d told Joly, when he’d gotten on the Ferris wheel in the park a few months ago, giggled nervously, held tight on his cane and the fluffy bunny he’d gained at the fair, and prayed to several Gods, that all that would happen, he’d never have believed you. Not in a million years. 

What he _did_ believe, and rather eagerly, was the fact that the ferris wheel had actually broken, on top of it all, when his cart was… _at the top._ As if that was not expected.  As if he didn’t need his daily dose of panic. Because Joly couldn’t enjoy a lovely day in the fair, complete with candy and pink fluffy plushies and all, to take a break from the hectic medical student routine, no. Joly _had_ to get stuck a few dozen meters from the ground, and with a very terrible fear of heights too. Because that was his luck. 

“Just my luck,” the other man who was in his cart chuckled, and that was the last thing Joly could take right now. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the bald stranger’s good humour, after all _he_ was the first one to laugh when something was funny, as well as when nothing was. But not now, no. Now his heart was racing in a way that couldn’t possibly be healthy, and his palms were getting sweaty, and stuff was clenching tightly in his stomach because he was panicking, and he wanted to scream and throw up on the stranger. 

“You know since you got in the same cart with me, you were doomed to stay up here,” the stranger continued, sighing gravely, though the bright smile not fading from his face. 

“Oh is that so,” Joly asked in a trembling voice.

“Yeah,” the man shrugged his shoulders. “It’s my fourth time.” 

“FOURTH!” Joly squeaked in horror. Everyone was shouting and screaming in the other carts, people running around on the ground (at least so Joly guessed from what he heard, because if he bent over the cart to look down he’d probably die), yet now he was somehow managing to get distracted. Here was a bald, smiling, not handsome but with-very-cute-dimples-and-laughing-wrinkles guy, bullshitting his way through making Joly believe that he had actually gotten stuck on a Ferris wheel _four times._

“Why the hell do you return then?” he croaked. 

The guy chuckled again. “What can I do, I love heights,” he said. “I always hope I’ll get back to Earth on time for my next class the next time, but it always happen. It’s my luck,” he repeated, and Joly didn’t know whether he wanted to punch the guy or to laugh. 

“I should blame you, then,” he tried to giggle, but it came out forced. He wanted to throw up and it would be such a pity with all the money he’d given for hot dogs and chocolate. He should have known that sausages from the fair would ruin his stomach. 

The guy let another small laugh, but then frowned. Joly decided frowning didn’t suit him. “Hey, you okay? You look all pale.” 

“It must be my anemia,” Joly mumbled shakily. 

“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

Joly bit his lower lip. “You’re not going to laugh?”

The stranger’s face softened. “Of course I’m not going to laugh! I’m not a _total_ dick!”

“It’s just… you laugh with everything!”

“I’d never laugh at you,” the man smiled, and Joly shivered, though he didn’t exactly now with what. “It’s going to be okay. Here, let me hold your hand.”

Joly pulled his hand away instinctively. “No, I don’t like people touching my hand.”

The man obliged and sat back on his seat, causing the cart to sway a bit in the air. Joly screamed on the top of his lungs, and grabbed both of the stranger’s hands, almost climbing up on his lap.

“Well,” the guy raised a teasing eyebrow.

“Oh, shut up!” Joly moaned.

The man smiled mischievously. “Your bunny is cute, you know.”

Joly felt his cheeks burning. He could hardly hold back a giggle. “Same.”

The man raised a thick eyebrow. “I don’t have no bunny.”

Oh, _shut up._

*

Bossuet wakes up with a riot in his head. He lets a miserable groan and tries to open his bleary eyes. When he tries to recall the previous night’s events, everything’s foggy. He curses several times when he realizes he’s wearing lacy lingerie and neon rubber boots, as well as used tea bags as earrings. He groans again and rolls off the couch, hitting his head on the floor, because, just his luck.

It takes a while for him to readjust to the painful reality, but thankfully Grantaire walks in the room soon enough, in nothing but a ratty pair of sweatpants and a humungous mug of steamy coffee in his hands. The motherfucker, always manages to drink more than all of them put together and survive the morning.

"What happened?” Bossuet grunts.

Grantaire calmly takes a seat on the couch above him. “You tell me.”

Bossuet shuts his eyes tightly and grimaces in pain and recollection. “I remember a chandelier,” he mumbles eventually. 

“That’s right, because you rode it.”

“Where _did_ we find a chandelier?”

“Apparently your new boyfriend brought it along.

“My…” Bossuet sits up in horror. “But I don’t have a boyfriend!”

“That’s right,” Grantaire muses thoughtfully. “By the looks of it, I should probably say your new husband.”

Bossuet is thoroughly confused, if not awfully worried. He’s get drunk more times than he can count, and he always wakes up with a pounding headache and the sense that something went awfully wrong, but was totally worth it. This once, the feeling is more intense than ever before, and he doesn’t know why.

Just then, an alarming sound pierces his ears, causing him to jump up and hit his head on the record shelf. It might be the doorbell, or the police, or the sirens of war…

Here, it’s for you,” Grantaire hands him the phone.

It’s a panicky voice saying something and Bossuet has to try hard to decipher it.

“Yes, hello?”

“Listen,” the voice says from the other end of the line, “I don’t think I know you, but you were in the party last night. I found your number in my pocket and, by the looks of it, I now have your name tattooed on my ass."

He’s in some deep shit.

But then again, when hasn’t he been?

*

Musichetta hasn’t worked all her life for a dream, pushed away her studying, stopped seeing her friends, collaborated with the underworld, spent sleepless nights covered in flour and chocolate, and gained thirteen kilos, only to have that despicable amateur opposite her shop steal her recipes. This bakery has been her lovechild, her lifelong aspiration, her passion, and now here comes this ridiculous bald guy who steals all her customers with his stupid jokes! 

He can see those who come to her, they prefer her because they want to buy _her,_ not her creations! It has not been only once or twice when customers have tried to obtain her phone number instead of her famous lime-and-cream quiche! They go to _him_ and his tacky, inherited family bakery which he’s undoubtedly going to fuck up, because they live in a patriarchal society, and Musichetta is so fed up. But stealing her baking recipes, _that_ she isn’t going to take! 

She straightens her apron and walks out of her bakery, hands on her hips and bursts into his shop. She’s going to show him what Musichetta means, the fear and terror of the high school bullies, the mistress of dough, the artist of frosted caramel, because who does Monsieur think he is, stealing her clientele in such a petty manner? 

“Oh, chère antagoniste!” he smiles cheerfully, “what can I do for you? Are you out of misleading pretentious names for your mainstream pastries?” 

She slams a towel on his counter, causing a cloud of coconut dust to rise and cover his ugly sweater. “This has crossed the line, fucktruck,” she growls, and baldie cringes back, intimidated. “Who gave you the right to steal the recipe for my Snowy Crunchy Almond Superegos?” 

The bald baker thinks for a while, then bursts into laughter. “That’s what you call your Makroud El Louse? Sorry, miss, but they’re my great-grandfather’s secret recipe. In fact I wonder if _you_ somehow managed to steal it!” 

“Me!” she cackles absurdly, because his cheek is unbelievable. “Steal your _great-grandfather’s recipe_? Who are you trying to fool?” 

“In fact,” baldie frowns. “It’s quite suspicious how you made them when you’re not even Algerian! We could have a talk about cultural appropriation sometime…” 

“Yes, during which I’m going to teach your ignorant ass the fundamental difference between cultural appropriation and cultural syncretism. _And cookies_!” she growls. 

“Great!” he smiles. “You should give me your number then!” 

Musichetta smiles sweetly. “I’ll show you what I will give you.” 

“What a woman!” Bossuet sighs, mesmerized and covered in egg yolks, as Musichetta walks out of his bakery.

*

Bossuet rings Jehan’s neighbor’s bell almost hysterically, because Jehan and his paganist rituals can be totally scary in the middle of the night, especially when his skull friend with the flower crown, Abigale, is involved. 

The door opens and Bossuet almost chokes on thin air, because it’s _him,_ it’s the Ferris and the chandelier guy, and he’s wearing the most ridiculously cute penguin pyjamas he has ever seen in his entire life.

“It’s you!” the man breathes. 

“Uh, sorry to interrupt, but I’m positively sure that my friend’s apartment next door is like, 99.9999% haunted? Please let me crash here for the night?” 

Joly clears his throat and steps back. “Uh, of course! Just… I was already sleeping on the couch. Mind if I crash with you? I have a cold and I’m not sleeping with my girlfriend, because if she’ll catch it she’ll lose her finals. She has to maintain her work too, you know.” 

Something sinks inside Bossuet at the mention of the word ‘girlfriend’, but that’s always what his luck is like and, then again, he’s way too tired to deny a guy with a cold and such cute pyjamas to share his couch.

*

He wakes up warm and cozy, all limbs wrapped around him, fluffy socks rubbing against his calves. He wonders if this is what bliss feels like for a minute or two, and then hell breaks loose. 

It’s _her,_ she’s wearing nothing but an Elmo t-shirt that barely reaches her mid-thighs, and she looks murderous. 

Bossuet is _so_ fucked. 

“YOU!” she roars. Joly jolts awake in Bossuet’s arms and looks at her with sleepy confusion. Which under no circumstances can be classified as _adorable_. 

“Chetta cupcake,” Joly murmurs, “I thought you didn’t mind me sharing the couch with my friends so that you don’t catch my cold!”

“I didn’t mind you sharing the couch with your _friends,_ not with my enemy!” 

“That…” Bossuet gulps, looking from Joly to Musichetta and back. “That your… _girlfriend_?” 

“Do you know each other?” Joly asks in confusion. 

“She’s my baker rival!” Bossuet murmurs carefully. 

“She stole my Snowy Crunchy Almond Superegos!” Musichetta accuses him. 

“No!” Joly gasps in betrayed shock, turning to Bossuet as he clutches his chest. “You didn’t! How could you?” 

“They were my great-grandfather’s recipe!” Bossuet protests. 

“Well,” Joly sighs gravely. “I’m sorry but we take these misunderstandings very seriously in my family. This isn’t over until you both bake your cookies and I declare the winner.” 

This is war. And Bossuet has got his apron ready. 

It says ‘Kiss the Cook’.

*

“I’m like,” giggles. “ _Reeeeeally_ drunk!” more giggles. “Come get me?” 

“Where are you, Joly?” 

“In a parrrrty?” 

“Four R’s? Are they like your four L’s?”

An abundance of almost hysteric giggles. “Preciselllly!” 

“So I guess you’re at R’s?” 

Snickers. “Not telling you!” 

Musichetta sighs and calls Grantaire. Turns out Joly is with them at the Corinthe, so she throws on her coat and gets in her car. 

The last person she’s expecting to meet outside the bar, is Bossuet. Joly has called them all. And this is awkward. 

Joly is currently clinging on Bossuet, nuzzling laughter in his neck and tugging on his old fair-isle sweater. “This sweater is hideous!” he slurs. “You should totally like, take it off!” 

Bossuet turns to look at Musichetta apologetically. All she can do is sigh tiredly. She wants to keep herself cross at him but she really can’t, because then someone – Bahorel – throws a drink on Bossuet, and then he actually _has_ to take his sweater off, and the whole thing is thoroughly upsetting.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Bossuet murmurs, wearing Cosette’s mint velvet blazer over his soaked t-shirt. 

“Thank you for…” she clears her throat, patting Joly’s head comfortingly as he mopes on her shoulder, “you know, coming when he called you. You’re a good friend.” 

“Oh don’t worry,” Bossuet murmurs affectionately when Joly throws himself in his arms, “he’s done it for me before. At Marius’ birthday party.” 

Musichetta feels a smile spreading on her face despite her will. Joly pulls her close and suddenly all three of them are hugging in the middle of the smoky, kitschy bar with the neon lights. Joly shouts that he loves them, and Musichetta’s feels ready to explode.

*

“Are you Christmas, because I want to Merry you!”

“You’re such a dork!” she chuckles, leaning closer to kiss him. Her lips are soft and fierce at the same time, she tastes of peppermint chocolate and of the dough she’s been tasting, experimenting for a new recipe after returning from her philosophy class. He holds her close, swallowing her sweet breath. “I love you,” she breathes, and Joly’s heart forgets how to function.

 

*

He can’t hold back a smile when he sees Musichetta bursting into his bakery for the fifth time that day. She’s obviously trying hard to get a smile off her face too.

“So you decorated for Christmas, loser?”

“Well,” he hums mischievously, “so did you!”

“Well, I’ll let you know that your Christmas light are shit!”

“ _Your_ Christmas lights are shittier!”

“Give me something to eat, shitty baker!”

“Here, have some shitty frosted cranberry shit!”

She leans over the counter and smacks a kiss on his bald, shiny head.

His face goes redder than his cranberry sauce.

*

They practically adopt Bossuet. He crashes on their couch most nights, and nothing feels wrong about it. Joly and Musichetta have sex with Bossuet in the apartment and don’t give two shits. Bossuet is happy as long as he gets free food and a Cat, not to mention cable TV and the tackiest Christmas tree he has ever seen in his life (he guesses that’s what you get when you leave Jehan and Joly home alone to decorate). Never in his life has he felt more completed than with his two friends, and something’s missing every time it’s just two of them left. Their life is crazy and he’s never felt more sane.

“Where is the cat?” Joly shouts.

“Where is my underwear!” Musichetta follows suit.

You don’t have to be a philosophy major like Musichetta is to understand the logic behind this: Cat appears screeching and running around the living room, tinsel around her feet and Musichetta’s bra on her head.

“This is a Christmas CATastrophe!” Joly cries as Bossuet trips over his cane in a vain attempt to catch the cat who jumps over the couch and disappears in the bathroom, a freshly baked gingerbread man between her teeth.

*

Bossuet appears in the living room with Musichetta’s leather skirt spread tightly around his hips and his lips painted lusciously red. Joly gulps.

“Tis the season to be Joly, isn’t it?” he hums. “So, this _is_ a candy cane in my pocket, and I’m actually glad to see you!”

“Well, if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows!” Bossuet says in a mock seductive voice, posing against the TV. “Let’s grab some rein-beers to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks with!”

Musichetta calls them a married couple. Joly can only oblige.

*

The three of visit the ice rink. Musichetta knows from the very beginning that this is a bad idea, and it’s a pity because her skates are all shiny and cool, and it’s the first time she’s wearing them, and both her boys look so cute in beanies and mittens and pom-pom scarves it’ll be a total pity to land face-front on the ice, or worse, beneath it.

It’s really pretty at first, almost fairytale like, with snowflakes swirling in the air and sitting on Joly’s cute nose and lips, and Musichetta kisses them off as they skate around, Joly tipsy and cringy and cute, and then they take their turns with Bossuet who turns out to be a much better skater than they thought, until she goes on the side of the rink to tie her hair into a thick braid and she hears the louder thump any of the skating ices has made so far.

“I must be a snowflake,” Bossuet murmurs as Joly rushes to his side and kneels by him, “because I’ve fallen for you.” His beanie is slowly bleeding on his forehead and Joly is unusually collected.

“You might get a concussion,” he says professionally. “We must keep an eye on you tonight.”

Needless to say, all three of them sleep together.

*

Joly has a cold. The fourth one this winter. He’s bundled up in several scarves Jehan, Feuilly and Grantaire have knitted in turns, and is sipping apple tea, Bossuet and Musichetta had another baking contest earlier, which means red velvet cupcakes and peppermint mousse and Solipsist Chocolate Toffee Innuendos (whatever that might mean, it’s still tasty) _,_ and they’re both wearing their Christmas sweaters.Both, because Musichetta has her last class before the holidays, so Bossuet in his inappropriate reindeer jumper is putting on the last Christmas lights, Cat is licking marmalade from her fur (which was an accident) and Joly is trying to make DIY fireworks in a glass, occasionally sniffling in his sleeve, for science.

There’s a kind of an explosion, and when Musichetta comes back he finds Bossuet wrapped up in Christmas lights in a state which would have raised all his hair if he had any left, and Joly covered in sticky fizzy liquid.

“Weren’t you sick?” Musichetta raises an eyebrow.

“Well, _I_ am technically back from the dead,” a half-electrocuted Bossuet shrugs his shoulders, “but no worries.”

They cuddle together on the couch and they watch Love Actually while Musichetta keeps annotates all of her Harry Potter books for her feminist literature essay.

It’s a movie they all adore and they always will no matter how problematic some parts still _might_ be.

“Think of it,” Joly sighs, “a movie that claims to be inclusive of different kinds of love, isn’t that inclusive at all, is it?”

“Yeah, the black guy has what, two lines?” Musichetta frowns.

“I think there was a lesbian couple but they cut that out?”

“There will never be a polyamorous relationship, will there?” Musichetta mutters, examining her glittery nails. “In any catchy movie, ever.”

Bossuet shrugs his shoulders. “Unless you count one with Javier Bardem in it.”

They turn to Joly who’s been oddly silent for a while, not even blowing his nose. “Hey,” Musichetta gently rubs his knee, feeling him wince. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs hoarsely, coughing in his sleeve. “Just… my bloody sinuses.”

Bossuet nods sympathetically and they return to squeeing because it’s PM’s love theme coming.

Joly doesn’t speak for the rest of the movie.

*

“I can’t do this.”

“What, what can’t you do?”

Joly takes a deep breath and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I just can’t do this. The whole... I love you thing!”

“Well,” Bossuet smiles faintly, “I love you too, Jolllly!”

“No you don’t understand,” Joly tries to regain his composure but his pulse is pounding distractingly in his ears and Bossuet is waiting with surprise in his dark eyes and Joly can’t breathe. “I’m in love with you.”

Bossuet goes still and quiet, his features frozen and his throat stuffed. “Does Musichetta know?”

“I can’t tell her,” Joly croaks. “I’m also in love with her and… and I’ve never felt more awful.”

“You must tell her,” Bossuet says softly, not daring to move from his position, his heart climbed up his throat. “You understand that, don’t you?”

“I can’t – I can’t even admit it to myself. Chetta isn’t going to take this, and I love her so much but I love you too.” Joly’s voice breaks. “That’s not what I’m used to, not the way I’ve grown up. They… they aren’t ready for this.”

“For what, for the fact that you’re bisexual?”

“No,” Joly sighs. “For the fact that I’m… different.”

He stands up and walks next to him. Joly remembers what he told him when they met. That he doesn’t like strangers touching him. Now all he wants is Bossuet to grab his hand in his two darker ones, but he’s respecting his demand, always does. “You’ve always been different, Joly. I mean,” his breath brushes softly on his face and Joly shuts his eyes in desperation. “Look at you! You talk to your cat and you give names to Jehan’s flowers and rub your nose with your cane, you refuse to ever choose between Musichetta’s and my pastries and you laugh when everything is going wrong and hell I’m a dead man if…” Bossuet grimaces in pain, and “If I haven’t been madly in love with you since the moment I met you on the Ferris wheel!” Joly’s eyes open widely in horror and he thinks he’ll pass out but he doesn’t because he’s eaten enough salt today and his hypotension is fine. “But you had a girlfriend, and I’d never think about doing anything because you both are the most important people in my life, but now I’m in love with your girlfriend too, and I don’t know what to do.” Bossuet is left panting, and Joly’s insides are dancing in his rhythm.

“How can you love two people at the same time?” he asks in a faint voice. It’s his own eyes that he can feel prickling, but it’s Bossuet’s that tear up.

“I don’t know,” he says. “How can you?” Joly is left helpless as Bossuet finally takes his cold hand in his own and holds him. “Listen,” he murmurs in a husky voice. “I’m sorry that you got my name tattooed on your ass. I’ll stay away if that’s going to help. I’ll give you some space, some time with Musichetta.” Something heavy sinks inside him. “I don’t want to make this hard for you.”

Joly sinks, and sinks, until he’s hit rock bottom, and he can’t breathe.

*

“Angel, shouldn’t you be sitting on top of the tree?” Grantaire slurs drunkenly and slips next to Enjolras who’s wearing reindeer antlers and a miserable expression because that’s what happens most of the time in Courfeyrac’s Christmas parties.

Musichetta needs Another Alcohol. A whole sea of it. She’s dizzy, her world is dizzy, and she doesn’t know what to do anymore. She’s lost and she drinks, even when Eponine hides the vodka and threatens to put her in bed. She’s in love, she has so much love she thinks she’ll explode from it, and she wishes she could give it, she wishes they would let her part it in two but everything’s harder than it should be.

He’s dancing with Combeferre and Bahorel, who grabs her hand and drags her in their circle. Their eyes meet and she loses her breath. _Why did you disappear,_ she wants to ask. _Why aren’t you him and_ you _at the same time, why aren’t you two the same person so that I can love you, why have you left him, why has he left you, when will you come back, when?_

She doesn’t know what happens. The room is turning, there are colorful lights everywhere. Courfeyrac and Marius sing drunkenly and off tone from the corner of the room. She’s in his arms and she’s losing herself. He’s looking at her with eyes that say I’m sorry, and she’s melting against his body.

“Am I on your naughty list?” she hears herself asking, but it’s not her voice. It’s husky and hushed and pained, and he freaks out, and next thing she knows, his lips are on hers, and Joly is standing in the middle of the room, looking at them.

*

“I’m in love with him,” he says with tears streaming down his cheeks, and she hates him and she hates herself and Bossuet and everyone and everything that puts names on things and relationships and feelings.

“Of course you are, darling,” she nods, trying to control to frantic pounding in her heart. “You’ve always been.”

 “Are you?” Joly swallows a sob. “In love with him?”

She takes a minute before nodding. “I am.”

“And me?” he trembles on his corner. “Do you love me still?”

“Never stopped,” she says fiercely, her voice deep and mellow as it always is. “Never will.”

“What is happening to us, Chetta?” he shudders, pulling his knees close to his body. “What are we gonna do?”

She gets up and sits next to him, wrapping her warm, soft body around his lanky one. “Embrace it.”

“Is this supposed to happen to people?”

“I don’t know, baby,” she muffles her voice in his hair. “It was supposed to happen to us.”

*

New Year finds them in Joly’s bathtub, full with poinsettias and floating candles (Bossuet might have burnt his left eyebrow just a little), with at least two or three aromatic ballistics exploded (the dragon’s egg makes Musichetta feel like a queen). They have a bottle of champagne sitting on the toilet seat, and two chocolate logs of two different recipes half-eaten in a plate on the sink.

“What do reindeers say before a joke?” Joly leaves a dramatic silence, “this will sleigh you!” Both he and Bossuet are splashing each other and laughing so hard they can’t breathe before he can even finish his sentence.

“You’re both insufferable!” Musichetta groans.

“Yes, but you love us,” Joly croons.

“God help me, I do!” she chuckles as Bossuet gets up to grab and towel and slips in the tub, landing straight on Joly’s lap with a sinister smile.

Lights go off then on with the beginning of the year, and everything’s colorful outside the misty window, and they’re kissing each other and, if you had told Joly’s fluffy bunny that this day with the Ferris wheel would have given him a new, loving home and a cringy thingy about sex, instead of a height issue thingy, he would have told you to get the shit out of here.


End file.
